Unknown Type Rescue: Nobody Say A Word
by DaisyK2tog
Summary: There's nothing like being shown up by a patient during a run.


**Station 51…unknown type rescue…3795 West Ocean St. …Apartment 4 …cross street Avalon…3-7-9-5 West Ocean…time out 0214**

The lights and the tones got the six men of Station 51 up off their beds and into their bunker pants before any of them were actually aware of waking up. By the time they got to their respective trucks, pulled on their turnouts, and climbed aboard, they were fully awake and functional.

"Man, I hate unknowns in the middle of the night," John Gage groused from his passenger seat in the squad. "Especially to that area."

His partner behind the wheel, Roy DeSoto couldn't agree more, "Yeah. You never know what we're gonna find."

In the cab of the pumper, the men were quiet, mentally preparing themselves for any situation. With steady hands on the steering wheel, Mike Stoker kept one eye looking out for traffic and the other eye on the little red Dodge truck in front of him as the paramedics led them to the scene.

As the apparatus turned the corner from South Avalon Blvd on to West Ocean St. Johnny starting peering out of the windows on Roy's side of the side of the squad. "It should be comin' up on your side in about two blocks."

"Yeah," Roy acknowledged absently. "I don't see any apartment buildings."

"Nah. Around here it would only be one story. Maybe two duplexes together?" Johnny surmised. As they crossed the second street, he spotted it. "There," John pointed out the windshield to a cream colored, U-shaped structure with a four space parking pad against the street. Three spaces were taken and Roy pulled the squad up to block the cars in.

Grabbing their gear from the compartments, Roy and John trotted past the cars and up the walk in front of the apartment doors. Capt. Stanley followed behind, having waved the rest of the engine crew to stay behind with the truck for now.

On the left, each brown door sat next to a large picture window and had one of those gold-on-black italic house number stickers above the peephole. Apartment 2 had the porch light on, and by that the men could see the stained concrete they were walking on and the sickly looking vegetation that passed for landscaping on the right.

Nearly tripping over a Playskool Tyke Bike left out on the walkway, Roy came even with the window for Apartment 4. Looking back, he gestured with the drug box at the toy and said, "Watch that thing."

From inside, a man's voice shouted from right behind the glass, "Aw, good! You're here!" Seconds later the door labeled " _4_ " opened out and a rail thin man with shoulder length, unkempt brown hair wearing cargo shorts and a ripped, dirty white T-shirt that was too big with a large, green palm tree on the front leaned out of the doorway at them.

"Yes, sir," Roy said with authority. "What seems to be the problem?"

"My roommate, man," his slightly slurred words indicating that they were dealing with someone in the process of getting high as a kite. As Stoner Boy led them to bedroom of the small apartment he continued raving, "I told her she was cookin' too much of the H there, but she said 'fuck off, bitch, I can handle it' but look," he waved them into the room, "she was wrong, man. She was wrong."

On a queen sized mattress on the floor, covered ironically with a pink floral fitted sheet, was the women in question. She was lying flat on her back with her head propped up by the wall so that her chin was resting on her chest. Her arms were splayed out to her sides and her left foot was tucked under her right knee. Limp, dull, black hair grew in a strip from the center of her head down past her shoulders, but the sides were shaved. A silver nose ring hung from the top of her left nostril and many more silver rings ran all the way around the outside of her left ear. She was wearing only black bikinis and bra, and what looked like a red, satin, kimono style robe that was hanging wide open. To John, Roy, and Hank she looked like a child's old, discarded Barbie doll.

The paramedics approached the prone figure from either side of the bed. Johnny put the biophone down and heard a soft clank of metal on metal. Lifting the orange box up again he found he had put it down on a black encrusted spoon and a disposable lighter. He kicked them to the side and plopped the biophone back down. His eyes quickly scanned the prone body. That's when he saw the syringe she had used lying beside her outstretched left hand. "Roy," he called over to his partner, "don't kneel down yet." He pointed to the needle near his partner's foot, making sure Roy saw it. The senior paramedic nodded and carefully backed up to drop the drug and trauma boxes on the floor.

Roy grabbed a latex glove and the mayonnaise jar they used to hold used needles out of the trauma box. Using the palm of the glove as a barrier to pick up the syringe, the wary paramedic carefully lowered it into the jar. He pressed the tip against the glass to snap off the needle from the base then dropped the base and glove into the jar as well. He used the pen from his shirt pocket to gently push the glove down firmly and fully into the jar to make sure the dirty needle was secure, then put the lid that he had fished out of the bottom of the trauma box back on, and put the jar back in the box. All three men let out a collective breath they didn't know they had been holding. The last thing Cap's men needed was to accidentally stick themselves and get hepatitis from the thing. Stoner Boy watched all this with wide eyes and slack jaw. His only comment was, "Wow, man."

Johnny looked over to the source of the voice and asked, "What's her name? Hey! What's her name, man?"

"Uh…Jojo," came the slow reply, as if from a million miles up and away. Johnny raised an eyebrow at Roy in reaction to the unusual name. Seeing the men at his roommate's side finally kneel down and look at her, Stoner Boy figured his roommate was in good hands and wandered off back to the living room.

"Jojo, can you hear me?" John spoke sharply in to the unresponsive face while his partner wrapped the BP cuff around her arm. As Roy pumped up the cuff to take a reading, Johnny did a sternal rub and called her name again. This time they got both a moan and slight pulling away of the arm with the cuff. But the eyes remained closed and the girl was still seemingly unconscious. "Cap," John addressed his boss, "could you get the O2 on her and then call an ambulance?"

John flipped the lid of the biophone open and attached the antenna to start transmission to the hospital. While Hank quietly radioed for an ambulance, Roy called out, "BP 125/80." John jotted it down in the notebook taped to the inside of the lid with his own pen. "Pulse 108," came the next vital sign. Fifteen seconds later, "Respiration 12 and shallow." All this was noted in the book.

Picking up the receiver from the base of the orange box, Johnny depressed the call switch and said, "Rampart, this is Squad 51. How do you read me?"

Half a beat before he was about to repeat himself, the response came, "We read you loud and clear, 51. Go ahead." Bracket.

"Rampart, we have a female approximately 25 years old. She's, uh… currently unconscious but responding to pain stimuli." Johnny had noticed her blue tinged fingernails and pink lips and reported, "Victim has peripheral cyanosis and depressed breathing. We have her on 12 liters of O2…"

"Pupils are constricted and non-reactive," Roy interrupted.

"Uh…pupils are constricted and non-reactive. Her, uh, roommate indicated she OD'd on heroin and we found a used syringe by her hand and a spoon with what looks like black tar residue in the bowl on the bed with her. Vitals are as follows: BP – 125 over 80, pulse – 108 and respiration is 12 and shallow."

"OK, 51," came Dr. Bracket's voice, "start an IV with D5W and give her 2mg Narcan IV. Is the ambulance there yet?"

Sirens could be heard getting closer. "Negative, Rampart. But, uh… I can hear it approaching," John responded with the assumption that the sirens were for them.

There was a pause from the biophone, then Bracket's voice came through again. "51, transport as soon as possible and continue to monitor vitals en route."

Johnny repeated all the instructions and signed off with, "10-4, Rampart."

Roy had already gotten the IV kit set up and was looking at his patient's left arm with a worried look. The crook of her arm was covered in track marks. He attempted to insert the IV, but gave up after a couple of tries. Taking a fresh kit out of the drug box he handed it over to his partner. "Johnny, her veins are trashed over here. I can't get a line in. Can you try on the other arm?"

The junior half of the team took the kit and eyeballed the arm on his side of the girl. "I don't know, Roy. Looks the same over here, but I'll give it a shot." By this time the ambulance attendants were just stepping into the bedroom doorway, poised to receive the patient as soon as the paramedics were ready. "We may have to go with a jugular stick," John concluded.

The veins were easy to see, that wasn't the problem. But they were collapsed or dark with scars and blood clots. Trying above and below the tracks, Johnny inserted the IV needle into the girl's skin several times, never seeing the flashback of blood that would let him know he made the vein. At the third attempt, the formerly closed eyes opened a slit and pinprick pupils floated over to where the poking was happening. As Johnny stuck her for the fourth unsuccessful time, Jojo's voice was heard for the first time.

"Aw, gimmie that," the addict slurred groggily. She reached across herself and grabbed the IV out of the stunned paramedic's hand. Her eyes slid closed as her hand dropped to her arm. All in the room watched in disbelief as Jojo quickly and smoothly inserted the needle into her own arm, getting the flash back that neither Johnny nor Roy had been able to achieve.

Johnny closed his eyes and took a deep breath. With a low voice, he very deliberately stated, "Nobody say a word."

* * *

Johnny was already sitting in the squad when Roy came through the emergency room doors carrying the box of supplies the picked up from the nurse's station.

He slid the box across the seat toward his partner, then slid himself in. When he banged the door closed, Johnny jumped as if he hadn't yet noticed Roy. They looked at each other. Johnny pointed at Roy's face and said emphatically, "Don't."

Roy put the key in the ignition and replied, "I wasn't going to."

"How is she?"

"She'll live. Bracket said they're gonna keep her for a while, try to get her in some better shape." Hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Try to convince her to get clean. Go to rehab." Roy shook his head, put the red Dodge in gear and pulled out of the bay.

John stared out his side window. "Yeah. Like that's gonna happen," he said with a touch of despair.

Johnny drew a deep breath, and for a moment Roy steeled himself for another Gage Rant. But instead, the breath was just slowly released. Driving 'home' in silence, both men vowed to themselves and each other to never talk about the details of this call. For a multitude of reasons.

 _Fin_

* * *

A/N: The run depicted was inspired by a real life EMS call as posted on an EMT forum thread about their funniest calls.

I am not a heroin user, nor an EMT/Paramedic. I did the best I could web-researching. Any medical mistakes are mine (it's hard to roll back current OD protocols to what was probably done back in the 1970's when you were a small child) and I apologize to anyone who knows better.


End file.
